


The Night Is Long

by houndinghell



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Clan Lavellan Mission Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houndinghell/pseuds/houndinghell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisition is rising high, even after the defeat at Haven. Their new fortress serves them better than anyone could have anticipated, their forces grow by the day, and the Inquisitor Amyrss Lavellan's influence strengthens every time the stories of her successes pass another person's lips.</p>
<p>Yet not every mission can go well. It's the end of the world, after all, and Amryss is left to deal with an even greater personal fallout of her mistakes than those at Haven. It may even be the thing that destroys her.</p>
<p>But no one said that she had to cope with it alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Is Long

“Inquisitor?”

They are staring at her from across the war table, each set of eyes heavy on her shoulders like a physical thing. But none of it compares to the weight of the single sheet of parchment trapped between her trembling fingers. The rustle of Josephine’s dress is deafening in Amryss’ ears, and from the corner of her vision she can tell that Cullen is edging around the table—likely ready to try and comfort her or catch her or check that she’s not lost her mind or _something_. Leliana is still, silent. Amryss isn’t sure if that’s worse or not.

“Inquisitor?” Josephine’s voice is so small and hesitant. She’s never spoken that way before, not to Amryss at any rate. Amryss has to press her lips together that much tighter, clench her jaw even harder, and swallow down the thickness rising up in her mouth.

No one moves or speaks again for long moments. Everything stretches out, thinner and thinner and Creators, she can’t break. She can’t break right now. This cannot be the thing that breaks her because-

With deft movements, the letter is folded back upon its crisp lines, hiding the damning words within, and then tucked into an inside pocket.

“Please excuse me. I need to-”

They wait for the next words, but Amryss cannot find them. The few she has managed are bitter and clunky on her tongue, making her teeth ache like they do in the cold. She opens and shuts her mouth, opens it again, and nothing comes out. She bows her head and takes a deep breath that shakes its way down to her lungs. Cullen takes pity on her, and she’s never been so grateful to the man as when he says, “We’ll see to your work, Inquisitor. Let us know if you need anything.”

A single nod is all he gets before Amryss turns on her heel and flees. She leaves the war table and her advisors behind, and all the while her heart beats a bruise in her chest, fighting its way out to the place where the letter lies inside of her coat.

 

Skyhold is a sprawling keep, meant to contain far more people than even the Inquisition has to offer just yet. The rooms are still mostly in disrepair with their broken windows and crumbling mortar and stone bricks. Scaffolding is all that keeps some halls from collapsing in on themselves in the greater storms. For those who haven’t spent time learning the place, it is practically a labyrinth, each uninhabited room more confusing than the last. So it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that no one can find her. Cole could have, of course, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of him the whole day.

They hadn’t really meant to look for her at first, but when Josephine had gone to the Inquisitor’s rooms to try and make what apologies she could as well as promise to do everything in her fix the scraps that remained, and had discovered the Inquisitor wasn’t there, they began to worry. When they looked and asked around and realized no one had seen her at all since she left the war room more than six hours before… That’s when they began to panic.

They search everywhere they can think of: from her rooms to the stables, the courtyard to the vaults, the rookery to the atrium, the guard tower to the tavern. There is no sign of her, or anyone who can be of any help finding her. The problem comes from how discreet they need to be—Andraste forbid the people realize their leader has gone missing, so only the inner circle and a few select others have been made aware of the situation. They can’t invest in a full search, not without raising questions or causing a panic.

“I do not understand! She cannot have gotten far, and someone _must_ have seen her!” Cassandra’s voice is a low hiss as she storms her way through the courtyard for the third time in an hour, the Knight Commander right at her heels. The soldiers standing near the stables have taken to hushing themselves when she passes by, afraid they might catch her ire. “What sort of Inquisition loses their own leader?”

“Ours, apparently,” Cullen says dryly. “The Inquisitor has always been good at sneaking around. It’s what makes her so good in a fight—that’s what you’re always telling me.”

Cassandra makes a noise of disgust. “Well I take it back! It is a nuisance!”

The expression Cullen shoots her way says enough. Cassandra’s face stays hard for a moment, then she sags and pulls herself to a stop in a discreet corner by one of the buildings. “I do not think she should be alone right now, even if she wishes it. With what happened…” Her mouth twists into an ugly grimace. “No one should have bear that sort of grief alone.”

“We still haven’t found Ginger?”

The scowl on Cassandra’s face came back at the sound of Varric’s voice as he came up from behind them to join the conversation. “No. Not even Leliana can locate her. If we do not track her down soon, we might have to start searching outside of Skyhold.”

Varric shakes his head at her. “You people,” he grumbles, just barely under earshot. He sighs and raised his chin. “Look. If the girl wants to be alone, let her. She’s not stupid, and she’s got to still be in the keep _somewhere_. No one saw her leave, and there’s not exactly a lot of ways to get out. _That_ , someone would have noticed.”

“I would not be so sure,” Cassandra sniffs, raising her chin just enough that she can actually look down her nose at Varric. He resists rolling his eyes at her—barely.

“The girl is in shock. She probably wouldn’t have the presence of mind to find a way around the dozens of soldiers sprinkled all over this place without getting spotted once and manage to make it out of one of the, what? Three, four exits to this place?”

“He’s got a point,” Cullen says. Cassandra shoots him a withering glare.

“Not. Helping.”

Varric raises his hands placating to the both of them. “If you’re really that determined, I’ll pitch in. We’ll keep looking. Just don’t do anything too crazy, alright? We’ll find her. She’ll be fine.”

Cullen gives him a solid nod of agreement, though his eyes can’t stop giving away all that overwhelming concern he seems to carry everywhere these days. Cassandra sighs, soft and swift, and bows her head for a moment. “From your mouth to the Maker’s ears, Varric.”

Varric’s answering chuckle is wry, and the lopsided smile on his face doesn’t quite reach all the way to his eyes as he tells her, “I wouldn’t count too much on Him listening to me.”

  

If the Maker was listening or Varric just got lucky, he’s not sure.

But standing around the corner, listening to the ragged, hiccupping sobs as the Inquisitor struggles to catch her breath… He doesn’t _feel_ very lucky.

Softer than Amryss, though, is Cole’s voice. Varric can’t hear exactly what he’s saying from here, but the words come in a stream, low and soothing. The few moments Cole hesitates or pauses, the crying gets worse. That realization makes something pinch and churn uncomfortably in Varric’s chest.

How long has Cole been here, he wonders, and how bad was it before he found her?

Caught up in himself, it takes Varric too long to realize Cole’s voice has raised up, echoing against the stones.

“-worry, wrenching, wondering how to temper the taint of anguish like this. He’s seen too much, lost too much, and he knows what the drowning is like deep inside. But how does it help when he doesn’t know how to teach someone else to breathe? He doesn’t know, but he wishes he does. He’s so _tired_ of watching it happen, over and over and over again. Nothing is ever enough. There are so many people he knows who-”

Ousted, Varric doesn’t have much choice but to round the corner. “I think that’s enough for now, kid.”

They’re sitting at the end of a narrow corridor in some forgotten part of the keep—and with good reason. Rubble lies around them everywhere, and they’re only feet away from a gaping hole in the wall that lets in a constant bite of the cold mountain air. It’s easy to understand how this place might have been missed in the search. Cole is closer to Varric, his legs sprawled out in front of him in his place on the floor, his hat drawn low as ever over his eyes. His hands are clasped together on his lap, and around his wrist, the familiar dark skinned hand of the Inquisitor curls tightly.

She’s coiled up small, like she’s trying to vanish inside of herself. Tucked behind Cole as she is, she seems to be halfway to succeeding. As Varric picks his way over to the pair of them, he can see her a little better; she’s scrubbing violently at her already red and puffy face with her free hand, digging the knuckles into her eye sockets. Her short hair, always styled back so carefully even when they’re in the roughest wilds, now curls in loose clumps against her cheekbones and tangles at the top where Varric can only assume she tugged and combed through it with her fingers.

“Varric, I- oh, Creators. I’m, I’m sorry you have to see me like this. What are… What are you doing here?” Her voice is so rough and broken, it ruins any attempt she’s making to appear calm and to meet his eyes. Not that the attempt is all that good; her fingers are trembling so badly Varric wonders if she might accidentally poke her own eye out, her chest rises and falls with her gasping like she’s just come back from running from a Maker’s damned dragon, and she keeps biting down on her lip every time the breathing comes too hard—trying to reign it all in, most likely.

“Coming to see, making sure you are steady, singular, secure in storms. But, you’re not. Not yet. There’s so much _hurt_.” Cole raises his face to look Varric in the eye—as if the heartbreak on Amryss’ face wasn’t enough. “She won’t let me help, not the way I do it. She says she doesn’t want to forget the pain, but it runs deep and dreadful and dark. It’s so _dark_ , Varric. She says she only wants a friend, she wants me to stay, wants comfort and control and calming. But this doesn’t feel like any of that! I don’t know if this is helping!”

With every word that comes out of Cole’s mouth, Amryss’ face becomes even ruddier. It makes the shading of freckles on her skin stand out all the sharper, and the wetness of her eyes look all the brighter.

She doesn’t look much like the Inquisitor right now. The woman who has been dragging Thedas hand over hand out of the mess it’s found itself in by will and effort alone has always held her head high, always had a smile and a kind word and an unforgiving fist. Even back at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Varric felt like he was following some character out of an old tale, the ones where the names of the heroes are long forgotten because they’d stopped being people at all. He knows Amryss will be one of those tales, someday, assuming the world doesn’t go to shit first.

But right now, she just looks young and fragile.

“It’s- it’s fine, Cole. I’m- I should get back. I should- I need to-”

Before Amryss can even begin to push herself up to her feet, Varric is there, putting one heavy hand on her shoulder. He never noticed exactly how _thin_ she is, even under all those corded muscles and all that strength. He could probably squeeze tight enough to break her bones, if he wanted to try. “There’s nothing you need to do right now, alright Amryss? We’ve got your back.”

“I-” She swallows hard, then does it again. “You _never_ call me my name.”

“You never seemed to mind being called Ginger,” Varric tells her with a shrug. “It suits you.”

“It’s- it’s nice. My friend, Ellinara, she calls me Red all the time. With her it drives me up the wall, though, because she always tugs on my hair when she does it, or starts going on and on that-”

He actually _sees_ the remembrance sneak back up on her and grab her by the throat, right down to the second. Her eyes flicker and go wide, her chin trembles, and she draws back from Varric to be closer to Cole’s side.

“Called. She _called_ me Red. She’s- she won’t-”

“Won’t ever say the name again.” Where Amryss can’t speak, Cole shares freely, and she doesn’t do anything to stop him. “Not Red or Amryss or _lethallan_. Never curl up together in an aravel together, never stitch the seams and splits of sails that soar over space beyond sight. Fingers tugging cloth back into place, feel of them tangled in hair to braid out of the way, taste of wood smoke on tongues, laughter echoing in the night, pouring water cold as winter snow down each other’s shirts and screaming so loud it stings- but not anymore. Not ever again. There will only be a missing piece, panging, piercing through and pulling at every waking thought. Not in only one place but many—how many voice, faces lost? _Never again, because I’m not good enough, I can’t even save my family, my friends._ ”

“Don’t think like that.” Varric’s voice is hard and cutting, but he needs her to hear this. “You did everything you could. You’ve already got so much on your shoulders, don’t add this to the rest of it.”

“They were my clan, Varric! My family- and I _failed_ them.” Another one of those sobs rips itself from her chest. It sounds more animal than anything else, awful and raw. “And now they’re- they’re all gone. My clan is _gone_ , dead or missing or- Creators, worse, maybe- what if they’re worse off-”

“They’re not. We’re all going to make sure of it. Anyone who’s left, we’ll find ‘em. Josie’s people and Leliana’s and Cullen’s are all working on it. You don’t have to carry the whole world by yourself, you know. And we’re here for _you_ , too. If you need something, you can ask.” He gives her a smile, lopsided and warm, even if he can’t make it go all the way to his eyes. “Friendship’s not just a one way deal.”

At her other side, Cole nods. “We can help.”

Any scrap of poise she’s managed to drudge up bleeds out of her then. She sinks forward, her face buried against Varric’s arm, and weeps. Amryss _weeps_ , and there’s nothing Varric can do except rest his other hand against the top of her head and let her. Cole stays where he is, shackled by the loop of her fingers still. After a few minutes, Cole begins to murmur to her again, leaning forward to reach closer to her ear.

Varric only catches snippets, but the little he does makes his heart sink.

“-only one person against the temple, it’s okay to have survived-”

“-giving so much, trying, tempering, testing, and no one asks for more, no one expects-”

“-saved more than you lost at Haven-”

“-clan loved you so much, always so proud-”

Amryss doesn’t say anything, though her breath hitches and her mouth moves with the words she can’t manage to force out. Whenever this happens, Cole speaks louder and more gently all at once, waves cresting over each other and wearing her down.

Slowly, slowly, the shaking in her shoulders eases and her sobs fade down into heavy breathing. By then, Cole has gone silent, content enough to stay at her side and pick at his sleeves while he waits for… whatever it is Cole waits for. Varric still isn’t sure how things work, but he trusts the kid’s judgment.

She stays hidden in his sleeve for a little while, and Varric lets her. When she doesn’t move and doesn’t make any hints of doing so, Varric resigns himself to shifting them both so he sits on her other side and her head can rest on his shoulder.

Time passes. They all let it. The sky grows dark quickly in the mountains, but the moon and the stars are stark, bright slashes that illuminate the Keep well enough. It’s cold, and the damp place on Varric’s shirt only makes it colder, but he’s not exactly about to get up and leave. Not even to tell Cassandra and Cullen to call off the search he’s sure they’ve set out—let them run around like headless chickens. This is more important.

Varric can’t stay silent forever, though. That he has this long is a miracle all its own.

“You want to hear a story?”

Amryss shifts enough to look up at him through red and swollen eyes. She waits so long, Varric is sure she’s going to say no. Then, in a hoarse whisper, she says, “Okay.”

And off he goes, rambling through as many stories as he can—which is saying something—embellishing where he wants and taking other pieces out when he needs to. He doesn’t watch her, but he can feel and hear the occasional huffing laugh when her shoulder digs into his arm and the scrape of her hair on his shoulder when she shakes her head at this antic or another. Like the crying, it passes away too as she falls asleep, utterly spent.

It takes him a little while to notice when exactly the ragged breathing peters out into low and steady ones. He glances to the side to check, and starts a little when he realizes that somewhere in all that, Cole had vanished.

“Great. Now I’m stuck,” he grumbles. He glares at Amryss without any heat. “You’re too damn tall, you know that?”

Amryss sleeps on.

Just as he’s settling in to be stuck there for the rest of the night and resigning himself to stiff joints and a terrible crick in his neck, the soft padding of feet echoes against the stone.

Varric raises his eyes and watches as Solas weaves his way towards him, his gaze fixed on the Inquisitor so intensely Varric had to wonder if Solas even knew he was there.

“’Bout time someone else showed up,” Varric says, making sure to keep his voice quiet enough that it doesn’t disturb the woman sleeping on him.

“Cole only came to fetch me a short while ago,” Solas explains as he reaches them, crouching down to be at eye level. “It took me longer than I would have wished to walk back to Skyhold from gathering herbs. Have you been with her long?”

Varric shrugs his free shoulder. “Few hours.”

Solas reaches forward and brushes his fingertips against Amryss’ cheek, then sweeps them up to tuck her hair behind her ear. He skims his knuckles back down the line of her jaw before finally letting his hand rest on the bare expanse of her neck and he breathes out, “Oh, _lethallan_.” The gesture is so careful, so affectionate that Varric has to look away, lest he catch sight of whatever expression might be on Solas’ face. Nosy author he may be, but even he knows a private moment when he intrudes on one.

“Thank you for looking after her. I-”

“Yeah, I know.”

The weight of Amryss’ head is pulled away as Solas eases her into his arms: one tucked under her knees, the other supporting her back in such a way that her head ends up resting on his chest. Varric pushes himself to his feet with a grunt, ignoring the sudden pins-and-needles spreading down his arm as the blood flows through the limb again.

Solas is already starting to leave, likely to take Amryss back to her rooms, when he stops himself. He doesn’t turn to face Varric as he speaks, though there is more warmth in Solas’ voice than Varric has ever heard before. “The Inquisitor is very fortunate to have a friend such as you. I cannot say I know many people who would have done what you did.”

“Yeah? You seem to be pretty up to the task yourself.”

“I would not call the Inquisitor and I friends.” The warmth is gone completely, replaced with something that’s all too cautious—maybe even nervous.

“So what are you?”

“That… remains to be seen.”

Before Varric can pry further, Solas is walking away, moving with more grace than anyone carrying a full grown woman in his arms ought to be capable of, and then he’s gone. Varric stares at the empty space where Solas had gone and shakes his head.

“’Remains to be seen’ _my ass_.”

When Varric makes it down to the main hall, Cole is waiting for him in the shadow of the doorway, tucked out of the sight of anyone except those who knew to bother looking.

“I was wondering where you’d run off to,” Varric said. “Good call on grabbing Chuckles. But why did you wait so long?”

“She didn’t want him there, not yet. Fear, building up beneath the bones, brittle and burning. _I can’t let him see me like this, I don’t want to be weak, I don’t want to break-_ ” Cole tugs a loose thread off the end of his sleeve and lifts his shoulders in the imitation of a shrug. “Us being there hurt, but… It helped, too. More than it hurt. I don’t think it would have been like that with him. It’s… strange. She feels warm towards him, lifting, lovely, like birdsong and the ache that comes from smiling. But she didn’t want him there. Why?”

Varric sighs to himself quietly. “People have a strange way of wanting to hide away from the people they like best,” he explains slowly, after he’s taken a moment to consider it. “That way, they can’t get hurt.”

“But wouldn’t those people help the most? I don’t understand.”

“Me neither, kid.”

They stand there at the edge of the hall, watching the few late night stragglers wandering in and out of this room and that, making their way to their own beds for the night.

“Amryss… Said I was her friend. That she was my friend, too. Are we friends, Varric?”

Varric raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah. Kinda thought that was obvious.”

A smile, tiny and unbidden, spreads over Cole’s face. It illuminates something about him, though Varric can’t put his finger on what exactly. It’s a good look for Cole all the same. “I’m glad.”

For the first time since Josephine had confessed to Varric what had happened to Clan Lavallan in a hushed whisper, Varric relaxes, and an answering smile crosses his face. “Me too, kid.”

 

Waking is a slow labor.

Everything aches—her head is stuffed with cotton, her throat has been rubbed raw with sand, a pressure throbs between her temples, her skin feels as though it’s been stripped away to leave her raw and vulnerable. It leaves nothing to be desired in consciousness; the soft wrappings of sleep are far, far more tempting to her.

But then, just before she can slip back down, a familiar calloused hand brushes against her forehead and through her hair.

“ _Lethallan_? Are you awake?”

She opens her eyes and looks up.

They’re on her bed, with him perched on the edge next to her, while she lies on top of the sheets, her face pressed into and half covered by the downy pillows. The light in the room is the dull orange yellow of candlelight and the glow of the fireplace. Solas’ face is thrown partway into shadow because of it, hiding as much as it shows. His expression is carefully composed, but he doesn’t need to hide anything for fear of reminding her. The memory is as immediate as her next breath, though the latter is less painful.

“They’re gone.”

Solas’ face crumples. There is something indescribable in the look in his eyes. Or maybe it is describable, and she is simply too tired to try. Even looking up feels like an insurmountable effort, but she doesn’t want to turn away from him either. “I am so sorry, Amryss. _Emma ir abelas_. What I would give so that you would not have to feel this pain.”

She pulls her lips into a tight line and nods, the gesture rubbing her temple against the palm of his hand as a result. He shifts it down so it rests against her cheek instead. His skin is warm, almost too much so, and the smell of his skin is more comforting than it should be—cotton and wild grass and the ozone snap of the Fade. She breathes it in as deep as she can and lets it fill her lungs until there’s no room for anything else.

“Is there anything you need?”

“Stay.” The word is out before he’s even finished speaking, and her hand goes up to curl around his wrist like she did with Cole, like she can keep him from leaving her. Solas turns his hand and takes hers up, lacing their fingers together and pressing them back to her cheek as before. “I don’t want to be alone.”

The wood in the fire cracks and hisses, bridging the gap between her request and Solas’ response. Seconds tick by, and a churning feeling begins to twist in the hollow that’s consumed her chest. Amryss opens the eye that remains uncovered to look at Solas-

He is staring at her face, leaning forward so that he is hunched over her—shielding her—and casting a shadow across her, blocking the firelight. It makes his expression more difficult to see, yet there’s a pain there that is clear as anything, as though she had wounded him somehow with her words. Then the expression flickers and is gone, replaced with the gentle affection she is used to seeing there when he thinks she isn’t looking.

“You will not be alone; I will make sure of that,” he promises. It is the first time he’s ever made a promise to her that she can remember. The uncomfortable twist loosens from her chest and she sags into the bed.

“Thank you, Solas.”

He strokes his thumb on the spot under her eye in long, sweeping arcs. “Do you wish to speak of it?”

Every instinct in her says _no_. She doesn’t want to recount this. Of all her failures, this is one of the worst, next to Haven. How many lives lost, thanks to her? Her parents had already passed on long before, but that didn’t mean the rest weren’t her family. They were people she loved, people who loved her, who taught her how to patch her clothes and approach a halla without scaring it, who shared laughter as easily as song. People who knew her as _Amryss_. Amryss, not the Herald, not the Inquisitor, not your Worship. Nothing but a person. They were home—the light at the end of all this. Somewhere safe, where she could be real again.

And they’re _gone_. Everything and everyone she ever knew, simply gone. Anything she would have gone home to doesn’t exist. Whatever life she has now… That’s it for her. It’s the only path she can see laid at her feet.

How can she speak to him about that? How can there possibly be words for it? Where could she possibly begin?

But.

She trusts Solas. More than anything else of the remains of her life, there is that. She trusts Solas. Maybe not in a way that meant she wanted him to see her when she was so weak she couldn’t remember how to breathe, but in a way that means _more_ … Yes. Choosing to let him see her vulnerable, instead of being forced entirely by circumstance…

She trusts him.

“Have you ever lost before, Solas?”

“Yes,” he answers, and his voice almost sounds as wrecked as hers does in that one word. “It happened long ago, and I do not wish to speak of it now, but… Yes. Immeasurably so.” Another long pass of his thumb over her cheek. “You are stronger now than I was then.”

A hiccupping laugh works its way out of her mouth. “I doubt that.”

“You should not. You have always been strong. I only now begin to understand how much.”

“Flatterer,” she grumbles. “Always the flattery.”

“So long as it works,” he teases her with a lightness that has her choking out another jerky, halting laugh.

“I suppose.”

He shifts their hands to tap his thumb against her chin before tucking their hands against her breastbone. “As I said before, _lethallan_ , you are strong. You will weather this, no matter how terrible the storm. You won’t be the same and there is always a cost—but you will get through it. This will not be what destroys you.”

“It feels like it,” she confesses to him in a small voice. Her gaze turns adrift, away from him and to the empty space at the bedside. “Maybe it’s a sign. A Dalish elf, leading the Inquisition? The Herald of their beloved Andraste? I can’t believe I ever bought any of it. I didn’t save my family when they needed me most. I can’t save anyone. I can’t do this, Solas. It’s impossible.”

His shifting is fluid as he goes from hovering over her to pressing his brow to hers, the lines and planes of his face mirrored and nestled against hers as neatly as if he was made for this, bracing himself with his forearm next to the space by her head. She closes her eyes and focuses on the warmth of him, the closeness that keeps the swelling panic from overflowing. He breathes in deep through his nose at the same time she does, and Amryss finds herself breathing out in time with him. “Lesser men and women have accomplished tasks as terrible as the one laid out in front of you,” he murmurs. “I have no doubt that you will surpass all expectation, just as you have before.”

“But-”

“If there is one thing I believe in still about this world,” Solas tells her, voice hard as steel as his fingers clutch tight to hers, “it is you.”

Something thick and heavy fills her throat, but when she opens her mouth, only air escapes. Her teeth rattle and click as she tries again, and then once more. There are no more words for this than there are to frame the depth of her loss. There is no response for such a declaration of trust, such love. There is no way to answer words of faith such as his. Nothing can match up to any of it.

Amryss simply nods and clings desperately to him, her harbor in all this wreckage, and waits for the worst of it to pass them by. Through it all, they never let go of each others hands, even when they reach the point of bruising skin from such desperation. Sometimes she grabs at his shirt, his shoulder, cradles the back of his neck. Other times, his hand will press to her cheek or stroke across her hair or settle against the reassurance of the pulse point at her neck.

The hours drag themselves past like this between them, stretching by like days rather than minutes. They do not give much thought to it how long it lasts. They have each other, and with that they make do. There is little else they _can_ do.

Night deepens, and then: the dawn comes.

**Author's Note:**

> After I utterly failed the 'Clan Lavellan' mission, I felt very frustrated by the complete lack of reaction from anyone in game. No one mentions it in any dialogue, there's no reference to it even once, and not so much as a letter that brings it up later in game--at least that I've found. So, I decided to write what happens afterwards myself to give myself some kind of closure.
> 
> This fic was edited by the ever lovely tumblr users 'karnsteins' and 'tevinterr,' who you should follow immediately. This story would not exist in finished form without them. The mentioned character Ellinara belongs to tumblr user 'benefaris,' who you should also follow.


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